New Scientist happily reports that Australian boffins are working on a computerised system that will watch for road signs and step in when drivers fail to spot and correctly respond to them. Sneak assumes that the system will stand some chance of working most of the time - as long as the driver avoids Heron Quay roundabout in London’s docklands, that is, and its ill-advised piece of street sculpture...

September 30, 2004 Science | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sneak would like to pass on reader Chris Orton’s sage advice, after he succeeded in squeezing some customer service out of reluctant mobile carrier Orange. If you find yourself faced by an obstructive and/or clueless helpdesk:
1. Get your hands on the fax number of the complaints department.
2. Write a stern letter of complaint, putting your telephone number very prominently at the top. Print out three copies, and tape them together into one long triple-rant.
3. Feet the start of the triple-sheet into your fax machine. Dial your operator's fax number and press send.
4. As the leading edge of your letter emerges from the fax scanner, tape it to the trailing edge of your letter, thus forming a loop.
5. Sit back and wait for the telephone to ring.
“After about 30 minutes I had a very helpful Orange representative call me back - apparently its fax service was suffering. Within two days my problem was resolved - all for less than a quid,” reports Orton. “Perhaps this is the future of pay-as-you-go support?”

September 30, 2004 Top tips | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday Sneak was delighted to meet ace blogger Cory Doctorow, one quarter of weblog powerhouse Boing Boing. And of course Doctorow was keen to offer his top tips on successful blogging:
1. Never use clever headlines. They're not helpful or self-explanatory when viewing long lists of blog entries in an RSS aggregator. To which Sneak can only respond that 'clever' is a relative term.
2. Keep your writing simple. Observe Bruce Sterling's principle of attention conservation by setting out exactly what each blog entry is about, as quickly and clearly as possible, so that readers don't waste their time. Again, Sneak feels compelled to protest that simple is always a value judgement, never an absolute.
3. "One of the great strengths of Boing Boing, but also its weakness," said Doctorow, "is that we are endlessly self-indulgent." Ah. At last. Some advice that Sneak can take to heart without any argument.

September 29, 2004 Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (1)

"The workstation market has never been a main focus of Itanium-based solutions, as our family of Intel Xeon processors provides the best overall price and performance." That's the official line from Intel today, following the news that HP is dropping its Itanium workstation line and instead pointing buyers at its own PA-Risc workstations or Intel Xeon-powered alternatives. So it might have seemed like a blow for Intel - HP co-developed the Itanium architecture along with Intel, let's not forget, so its defection looked like it had to hurt. But it didn't. Because now we know that Intel never really gave a monkey's cuss about the Itanium workstation market. And of course Sneak assumes that Intel will now be reprimanding the people that wrote its inaccurate and misleading web site, which still includes statements such as, "The Intel® Itanium® 2 processor uses Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing (EPIC) and 64-bit architecture to deliver world-class performance to high-volume workstations" and "Intel® Itanium® 2 Processor 1.60 GHz with 3MB L3 Cache Optimized for DP [Dual Processor] Servers and Workstations".

September 28, 2004 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Never one to miss a marketing opportunity, Virgin Atlantic boss Richard Branson neatly got in his press conference announcing Virgin space flight services ahead of the imminent X-Prize attempt by Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne. Virgin Galactic will, apparently, offer a branded version of the SpaceShipOne experience to consumers with a spare £100,000 or so to spend on going 100km straight up and straight down again. But why Virgin Galactic? After all, 100km is not exactly a galactic distance. Perhaps because the new publicity-grabbing brand had to resonate with the highly profitable real-world business that is Virgin Atlantic - the "tic" at the end of Galactic no doubt being the part that was seized on by marketers. A more accurate name, given the short-burn, sub-orbital flight characteristics of the SpaceShipOne rocket, would have been Virgin Ballistic. But perhaps it would be bad to remind wealthy customers that they are paying to be strapped into something with more than a passing resemblance to a ballistic missile...

September 28, 2004 Travel | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sneak stands in awe of the FT and its team of top journalists. Not only do they get the story in on time, but they are able to report it upside down. Unless, of course, it actually is PeopleSoft that is now trying to acquire Oracle, not the other way around. In the topsy-turvy world of hostile software takeover bids, who really knows what's going on? Well, not the FT's front-cover headline writer, for one...
Oddly, the online version of this story, from Friday’s issue, is subtly different.

September 27, 2004 Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jeeves, the butler-shaped mascot of the Ask Jeeves online search service, has been revamped, Sneak notes. He looks a lot less flabby and pallid than before. His posture has improved. And overall he seems less, well, there isn't actually a drawing of a closet, or any suggestion that he's come out of it - or rather gone back in - but he seems a lot less, erm, just have a look at these older images of the chap and decide for yourself.

September 24, 2004 the closet | Permalink | Comments (0)

The BBC's pioneering Ceefax television text service has been going for exactly 30 years today, Sneak notes. About the same time as it takes for some of the more obscure pages to download, then.

September 23, 2004 Television | Permalink | Comments (0)

Public conveniences in the London Borough of Lewisham must count as the least problematic toilet facilities in the land, if ranked by complaints received by telephone. How can Sneak be so sure? Simple: reader Winton Kinson contacted Sneak to point out that the telephone hotline for the Public Convenience Service Team, as listed on the Lewisham Council web site, is 020 7946 0600. Regular readers may be ahead of Sneak here. Yes, that number is one of the forever-unobtainable, imaginary connections that regulator Ofcom has set aside "for dramatic purposes". Not a good idea to call the hotline if you're desperate, then.

September 23, 2004 Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Microsoft-founder-funded SpaceShipOne is widely expected to win the Ansari X-Prize within the next 30 days or so. The X-Prize has clearly been a very worthwhile challenge but it has essentially stimulated a civilian repeat of where Nasa has gone before. More interesting from a long-term perspective is the space elevator concept. And, indeed, the Elevator 2010 competition. There are many challenges: it's always going to be tricky building a 22,236-mile-long structure stretching from the ground to geostationary orbit (or perhaps twice as far, to put the centre of gravity in orbit), particularly given that the equatorial locations needed for geosynchrony do tend to suffer from hurricanes. Still, you have to start somewhere, and in Elevator 2010's case it's with 200 feet of tape, up which competing devices must climb, taking their power from a bright halogen lamp shining from below - light beams being one practical way of transmitting power without the need for a 22,000-mile mains cable. Luckily, one breakthrough has handily happened just in time. Nature reports that boffins have worked out a new and efficient-sounding way to turn light into electrical power, using thousands of tiny carbon nanotubes. Which is all very neat, considering that the best prospective material for the cable also happens to be carbon nanotubes. The future would be a very dull place without the little things.

September 21, 2004 Science | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sneak was delighted to discover an innovative product from gadget maker Arkon: the Executive Laptop Steering Wheel Mount. As the name suggests, this cunning device allows a busy executive like Sneak to attach a laptop to a motor-vehicle's steering wheel, via a sort of fold-down-table arrangement. Having tried it out, Sneak does have one or two suggestions. First, some sort of swivelling gimbals arrangement would help to stop the laptop sliding off during sharp cornering manoeuvres and, as Sneak discovered to his cost, the mount should have its own airbag. When attached it stops the one in the wheel going off properly - if unsuspecting users should happen to hit a tree whilst trying to retrieve a fallen laptop from under the brake pedal.

September 20, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some initial responses to Sneak's earlier item on oddly-pronounced IT firms have arrived.
"There's the Ingres database, pronounced 'in-gress', which seems fair enough," notes Ian Taylor. "Except that it's presumably named after the 19th-Century French painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, whose surname is pronounced something like 'angrrrr'." An apt enough way of saying the name for many, after Ingres acquirer Computer Associates angered plenty of users by letting the product wither away, before tossing it over the wall to the open-source community.
Luke Freeman and friends, meanwhile, have been pondering TV-card vendor Hauppauge. "Hoe-parj?" asks Freeman. "Nope. After many attempts at interpretation, contact with the company revealed it was in-fact pronounced 'hop-hog'."

September 17, 2004 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Somewhere very high up on the list of dangerous inventions - just below the electric bath-water reheater - you'll find the Nouse, a new nose-steered navigation system for PCs, as featured today over at New Scientist. Apparently a camera is used to watch the user's nose-navigation movements, interpreting them with sophisticated image-analysis algorithms. Blinking an eye, meanwhile, acts as the equivalent of clicking a conventional mouse (presumably the right eye is for right-clicks, which could prove tricky for those who aren't very good at winking). Some commentators suggest that the invention, dreamed up by Dmitry Gorodnichy, will fail to achieve mass-market appeal due to the fact that users might feel somewhat foolish winking, blinking and waving their conk around to compose a document. But Sneak foresees a slightly more dramatic drawback. Who wants to suffer a sneezing fit and then open their eyes to find that they've accidentally replied to that spam offering a lifetime's supply of cut-price pharmaceuticals, sent eighteen messages of gibberish to the HR director, lodged a £20,000 bid for a signed photo of David Hasselhoff on eBay, and clicked "yes" to that "Format C: Are you Sure?" prompt...

September 16, 2004 Science | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sneak is relieved to note that Amstrad's E3 launched today at exactly the price Sneak suspected. Which is fortunate, given that Sneak was not looking forward to fulfilling his promise to eat one if it cost more that £99.99...

September 15, 2004 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sneak had planned to note that Oracle chairman Jeffrey Henley was clearly separated at birth from Dynasty tycoon Blake Carrington. But that was before Sneak ran into Eddie Munster from The Munsters, now all grown up and working for 3Com under the name Shaun Paice.

September 15, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Many IT equipment vendors seem to be following the lead of the DTI and hoping that EU environmental legislation will dissolve harmlessly in the ocean of red tape. But Japanese giant NEC is not among them. Its environmental research labs have already developed a range of eco-friendly plastics for computer cases, called NuCycle, and it is now apparently ready to go a step further. Earlier this year it announced the development of "bio-plastics" suitable for laptop casings made out of corn. It will unleash the first of these corny computers later this month. Such steps are of course to be applauded, but Sneak does wonder if there will be drawbacks, given that the plastic is designed to be broken down naturally by microbes. Just how quickly will this process happen? Will users have to store their new laptops in the fridge? Will they come with a best-before date? And will the new laptops go soggy in the rain, like corn flakes left in milk?

September 15, 2004 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Amstrad once had a huge presence in Dixons branches up and down the land - commanding the bulk of UK sales of cheap-and-nasty stereos and cheap-but-not-quite-so-nasty PCs. These days it's best known for no longer being anything like so well known, and for the one remaining Amstrad product on Dixons' stock list (a product which Dixons co-produces) - the E-m@iler phone-thing, as used by hardly anyone at all. (OK, as bought by 300,000-odd punters, if you happen to be a stickler for facts). Anyway, tomorrow Amstrad hopes to change all that, with the launch of the E3, an update to the E-m@iler that reportedly adds video-over-broadband capabilities. Videophones have for years been seen most often in dodgy science fiction films rather than in real life, at least partly due to the fact that a typical videophone unit will cost £600 to £700 plus VAT, before call costs or line rental charges have even been considered. But Sneak expects Amstrad to rip up that price list, given that the current E-m@iler Plus is sold for £29 - less than cost - with losses clawed back from call revenues. If the E3 costs more than £99.99 then Sneak will eat one. The telecoms partner in this case is reportedly Thus - a credible supplier - and at the right price the E3 could well kick-start a mass market for video telephony. Which will be nothing but bad news for the many people that Sneak knows who answer the phone naked. Or is that just in Sneak's imagination?

September 14, 2004 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sneak is quite often asked to provide a contact telephone number and, being a private sort of person, frequently Sneak would rather not. Unfortunately, telling people that you'd rather swallow a rancid haddock than hand over details of a jealously guarded direct line does tend to create awkward social situations. Fortunately, telecoms regulator Ofcom has come to the rescue, providing a list of legitimate-sounding UK numbers that don't actually lead anywhere. Admittedly, Ofcom has not created the list solely to solve Sneak's social problems: in fact the numbers are meant to be used for dramatic purposes. Sneak's editor did recently mention that things would have to improve "dramatically", so perhaps that counts. For more details, call Sneak direct on 020 7946 0727.

September 13, 2004 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

How exactly does security firm Thales pronounce its name? It looks as if it should rhyme with whales, though Sneak has it on good authority that it's supposed to be "tar-less". But one of Sneak's Yorkshire-bred colleagues came up with another alternative: "Up at t'mill we'd call it t'Hales." Seen any other nonsensical names? Suggestions to the usual address, please.

September 13, 2004 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

At least one record company has worked out how to stop its latest disc being ripped and pirated over the internet. After all, would you feel completely confident downloading and launching a file called Good Times?

September 10, 2004 Music | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sneak was of course distressed to see the Genesis space capsule make a somewhat less than optimal return to mother Earth yesterday. It's always sad to see years of work and millions in investment end up sitting in a freshly-dug pile of dirt in the desert. But Sneak couldn't help but feel just a tinge of schadenfreude at Nasa's problems. At least it's not just us Brits and the Beagle 2 Mars lander that can travel millions of miles simply to demonstrate that in any battle between falling objects and the ground, the ground does tend to win.

September 9, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fans of logical thinking everywhere will be saddened by the passing last week of philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser. As the obituary in today's Times relates, Morgenbesser was blessed with wit as well as a fiercely intelligent insight. "A famous Morgenbesser anecdote arose during a lecture by J. L. Austin in Oxford," the newspaper notes. "Austin said it was peculiar that although there are many languages in which a double negative makes a positive, no example existed where two positives expressed a negative. In a dismissive voice, Morgenbesser replied from the audience, 'Yeah, yeah...'"

September 8, 2004 Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0)

You may wish to steel yourself for a torrent of hackneyed headlines, punishing puns and, well, clichéd crap in local and national newspapers, following the launch of a new online word and phrase generator aimed at media headline writers. So what does this not-so-promising service offer? When a user enters a word, the database slopes off and fetches back a list of related phrases. For example, searching for "fish" brings up a very long list of trite phrases such as "cheap skate", "red herring", and "green around the gills". Never mind that most respected guides on creative writing advise avoiding such well-worn phrases like the plague. If you'll pardon that last stale sentence. Sneak would never use such a thing. No. When Sneak needs an idea for a headline, Sneak can rely on a mind like a rapier and rat-like cunning to come up with a flash of inspiration that arrives like a bolt out of the blue, because, err, oh dear. Sneak's trial subscription has just expired.

September 8, 2004 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sneak doesn't normally listen to Radio 3, but then the Between the Ears programme doesn't normally devote half an hour to the early days of computer hacking. Or more accurately, given the lack of worthwhile computers to hack during the 1960s and 1970s, phone phreaking. If you can live with presenter Ken Holling's odd delivery style - perhaps a conscious effort to sound 30 years out of date - then this temporarily-available recording is well worth listening to, particularly as it's largely composed of the voices of the phreaks themselves - people like John Draper (better known as Cap'n Crunch), Steve Wozniak (better known as the guy who founded Apple that's not Steve Jobs), Mark Bernay and Joy Bubbles. Yes, Joy Bubbles. It gets off to a good start, anyway, with Draper recalling how, at the time of the Watergate scandal in the US, he had been scanning Washington-area freephone numbers looking for "interesting" results. "I found this number where the guy answered the phone and was extremely rude to me," he recalls - an odd response, given that freephone numbers are usually staffed by obsequious salespeople. "So I did some social engineering later on and found out that that number was the CIA crisis hotline at the Whitehouse. We sat [listening] on the line and we found out that Olympus was the codename to reach President Nixon." A couple of weeks later Draper told his phreaky friends all about it. Naturally, they headed for the phones. "We contacted the number and we said, 'Olympus please.' They said, 'One moment sir.' Then sure enough a voice that sounded a lot like Nixon's came on the line. Somebody grabbed the phone and said, 'Sir. we're in the middle of a crisis here.' [Nixon] said, 'What's the nature of the crisis?' And he said, 'Sir, we're out of toilet paper.' Then there was silence on the line. And then another voice came on and said, 'Who is this?'"

September 6, 2004 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sneak was more than a little intrigued to receive a press release from mobile operator Orange proclaiming the launch of a new service called TALK NOWT. Could this be aimed at subscribers in the North of England, Sneak wondered, tired of having their lives constantly interrupted by intrusive mobile phone calls? Sadly, no: the new push-to-talk service is actually called Talk Now - the extraneous T being a remnant of one of the many ™ symbols strewn liberally around by overzealous marketing types and overpaid intellectual property lawyers. Who, Sneak thinks it's true to say, really ought to talk nowt.

September 3, 2004 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sneak was alarmed to learn that many of the cable locks used to deter laptop thieves can be bypassed with relative ease, given the right tools. And amazingly the right tools are not a finely-crafted set of skeleton keys and a large pair of bolt-croppers, but a Bic biro and a toilet-roll tube, according to a recent US newspaper exposé. Twitch-fingered lock-breakers Marc Tobias and the appropriately-named Matt Fiddler uncovered trivial vulnerabilities in a variety of security cables from top-name makers such as Kensington and Targus, and Tobias was happy to demonstrate the failings to reporters. To save readers the bother of wading through all 862 words in the story, Sneak can cut directly to the beef. If you don't want to see your much-loved laptop up for sale on eBay, Tobias recommends the PC Guardian ComboLock. "It's a nice piece of work," he says. Which probably means that he knows how to open that one too, but is not telling.

September 3, 2004 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

This error message was only to be expected - even if it is probably a fake sent to Sneak by a Linux fan with too much time on his hands. But this incredible error is definitely genuine, since it popped up on one of Sneak's own machines. Sneak will spare the blushes of the large supplier responsible for it - for the moment. Always assuming that Sneak receives a suitable bribe in the next few days, that is....

September 2, 2004 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mobile phones can often be a pain in the neck, but some can also now produce a distinct pain in the ear, Sneak has learned. No, not the monophonic mangling that is the latest pop-chart ring-tone, but a glitch in Siemens 65-series handsets that can cause them to emit an ear-splitting warning tone. "Because of a software error, if a telephone call is automatically cut off because the battery has run down, the disconnection melody could possibly start to play loudly," Siemens has warned. How loudly? "In extreme cases, this volume could lead to hearing damage," Siemens confesses. So quite loud then.

September 1, 2004 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1)